Joined 14 years ago
The same people who bemoan a failing trust in our scientific institutions are themselves furthering it, by adopting starkly authoritarian anti-science attitudes. They compound the problem by rabidly attacking anyone for daring to question, which is behavior more fitting to a religious dogma than to a science.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio
You are equating science with government enforcement of majority opinion. Think back to the time of Galileo. Why would you want to make this equation?
You want to think that times are different now, that the majority is wiser than it used to be. Why should that be so, exactly?
Imagine that leaders in the software industry could prescribe what languages were "safe" and what weren't. Imagine what that would do to innovation. Isn't it better to let people decide for themselves?
You fear that lack of regulation would lead to unnecessary harm and death. Yet, what of those who are intelligent enough to know the risks and wish to try new things, knowing the possible consequences? What of the cancer patient who is sure to die in 3 months, who wants to try a new experimental drug, but is legally barred from doing so? How can you justify this tyranny?
You wish to protect the ignorant from their own bad choices, but does this make them more intelligent or less? And what of those who are smarter than you, who know better than you, and who you have banned from doing things to help themselves? What of the future people who would have benefited from what they could have learned, that you prevented them from learning?
These are the types of questions you need to be asking yourself. You also need to stop pretending that fraud is allowed on a free market. It is not.
In any case, this is a complex issue that can be examined and debated from various perspectives, but you're just coming in here to pimp the status quo, as if that's useful. Your kind has already won by a landslide, there's no particular point in bullying people who think you have made a mistake. A person with an actual scientific mindset might be curious about new ideas, not pretend they know everything, and bully anyone who comes to the table with new information.
By the way, you're making various presumptions about my view that are false. I never said anything in support of medical fraud or crackpots. And again, this is the kind of sloppy reasoning I've come to expect from your side of the aisle. Your arguments won't stand up to scrutiny, ergo you fabricate straw men. This in itself demonstrates something to suspect in your viewpoint.
I've studied this stuff for years. I understand your status quo view, that thinks that good intentions are a substitute for philosophic rigor. Your view doesn't stand up to rational scrutiny, and it's holding all of mankind back.
Which is why we desperately need the government to get the boot off the necks of potential innovators and customers.
Yes the free market should decide, but we just don't have one. Net neutrality is an imperfect remedy at best, but letting the telcos run wild with artificial privilege isn't the answer either.
